


How Queer

by iktwabrokenbone (apiculteur)



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 09:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2383823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiculteur/pseuds/iktwabrokenbone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(In The Flesh/zombies return to their homes after the apocolypse AU)</p><p>Tyler came back to life in the Rising, and he's not sure how he feels about anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Queer

**Author's Note:**

> okay so TRIGGER WARNING: there are descriptions of self harm in here. there are brief descriptions of scars from self harm, and a short, not very graphic scene of someone self harming (razors if that makes any difference?).
> 
> also, sort of spoiler-y for in the flesh? might wanna watch that first (srsly u should watch it, queer characters guys) or maybe not idk. also its not october yet, but i finished it and i am actually rly excited about this. for all i know, its utter shit, but im still excited, so w/e.
> 
> title from whats this from nightmare before christmas bc i kept calling this 'how queer' in my mind so fuck it

_Tyler woke up slowly, unsure where he was. It was dark, so, so dark, and he didn't remember much. He groaned, and tried to stand._

_Walls. There were walls all around him. He was in a coffin. He used his fists try to break free, but it was harder than it would seem. It took so long, but his knuckles didn't bleed. Couldn't bleed._

_Eventually, it broke, and now he was clawing at dirt instead. He couldn't feel much, just a dull sense of dampness, and probably coldness. He didn't feel cold, though. It felt like it would never end. He was digging, trying so hard, but it was still dark, and he was still surrounded in dirt._

_Then it was different. As faint as his sense of touch was, he knew it was different. His fingertips weren't pushing at dirt anymore. He was close, he'd be out soon._

_It was easier after that, and he emerged, caked in mud, not panting, because he didn't need to breathe anymore. There was rain hitting his skin, but he wouldn't have been able to tell if he hadn't seen it falling, bouncing off his skin._

_No one else was close, and he lumbered around aimlessly, listening to the bells chime out the time, waiting for people to rise up out of the grave one by one._

***

Tyler hated the treatment centre. Everything was white and dirty. It was a hospital filled with patients that nobody cared about, because they were all already dead.

The therapy was the worst. Being told that none of it was their fault, and they just needed to _accept_ themselves. He hated it. "I'm a Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferer, and what I did in my untreated state was not my fault." He hated it.

In a way, he was pleased that he was going to leave so soon. Equally, he was too terrified to really allow himself to think about it. His parents. Zack, Maddie, and Jay. What would they say? At least he didn't have any friends to have to pretend to be alive around.

He stopped his thought train there, and sat in silence on his cot, bag full of possessions in hand. The man knocked on the door, effectively rendering the gesture meaningless by opening the door before he could respond. "Your family is here," he said, then walked away.

He walked towards the waiting room as slowly as possible. He didn't want to do this. He wanted to be back with his family, at home, _alive_ , with none of this having ever happened. No dying, no Rising, no treatment centre.

They caught sight of him almost as soon as he got into the waiting room, and he could see the red rims around all of their eyes, swallow down the lumps in their throats with a smile. He wasn't sure how genuine it was, whether they were actually happy to see him, or just wanted to cry for how much they missed him. Either way, he had still made his mom cry, probably far more times than just this once, five or ten minutes ago.

He forced a smile, and pretended he didn't want to cry as much as they did. He didn't break down, no sobs shaking his body, but he did end up wiping away tears with his sleeves- lucky there were long enough that he didn't end up having to rub his face against his shoulder.

The drive back was not filled with awkward silences, but rather awkward conversation.

"How are you doing, Ty?" his dad asked, and Tyler didn't know how to reply.

"Alright," he said, and his dad glanced at him in the mirror, only his creased brow visible.

His mom cut in to stop his dad prodding further. "We can buy Taco Bell if you want," she said, smiling kindly at him, and Tyler hesitated.

"Mom, I'm a zo- _PDS sufferer_ , I can't eat," he said, gently, even though he'd kill for a Taco Bell. Experience told him any eating would be pointless, though. He couldn't taste, hardly even feel the food in his mouth, and then it'd go straight through him, and he'd be throwing up that horrible black goo for a good few minutes.

He didn't sigh, or loudly mourn his inability to have a Baja Blast, but he thought about it. Very hard.

His mom pulled a face at him, apologetic. "Sorry. I'll get the hang of this soon," she said, and Tyler smiled, a real smile, because he knew she would. She didn't have to do any of this- he was over eighteen, they had no responsibility to him- but they had all still accepted their undead son back into the family, four years after he died.

"Thanks," he said, quietly, and Maddie squeezed his hand beside him, a slightly mystified, sad expression. He'd been dead for so long, but she grinned at him.

"You wouldn't believe all of the new nail polishes I got," she said, flashing her duck egg blue nails at him.

"Cool," he said, which had her shaking her head.

"No, you don't understand," she said, cupping on hand over her nails to create a dark area around them. " _Look_."

Tyler had to hold back a gasp, because, finally, they had glow in the dark nail polish. "That's sick!" he said, and she grinned at him again. "Do you have more colours like that?"

She nodded, and they spoke for about half of the drive just about various nail colours. It took him a while to realise how relaxed it all was, how _normal_ , almost as though you could take out his contact lenses and his eyes wouldn't be completely white but for the frayed black pupils, and his skin wasn't white and purple underneath the cover-up mousse. Spend so long accepting yourself, only to have to go back to literally covering yourself up around your family.

So he spoke to Maddie about nails, and Jay and Zack about all of the movies and new episodes of TV shows he'd missed, and to his parents about music, and it was like before. The only difference was, now he couldn't even look at himself without makeup on, and quite a lot of people wanted him dead.

***

One of the government requirements for PDS sufferers, to insure the living didn't get hurt, was two injections of Neurotriptyline everyday. They wouldn't be bad at all if it was just the strange sensation of it being slotted into the hole in the back of his neck, but, of course, it came with flashbacks too.

His mom always asked if he would prefer it before of after breakfast, and he'd smile and say after, and try not to feel too scared, because he knew it would happen. He knew he would remember being rabid, all the faces of the people he killed.

His mom smiled sympathetically at him and rubbed his shoulder, ready to inject him. "Okay Ty?" she asked.

He felt it go in, heard the sound of the chamber holding the medicine decompressing. As always, there was a brief second in which he could almost convince himself it wasn't going to happen this time. It always did, and he couldn't close the eyes to get rid of the face of the girl who had lived thee doors down, or the man who he'd never really met, but he remembered had constantly smiled.

He thanked his mom, and told her he was going out. Again, that worried expression which she had worn for the past three weeks since he came back. "Don't go too far. And be back for lunch, okay honey?"

"Yeah, mom. I'll be fine," he said. He pulled on an old hoodie, both out of habit and to hide his face. It was drizzling, and if his mousse washed off, he didn't want people to see his face.

***

It took him an hour to reach the cemetery, even though it was really just a ten minute walk. He hadn't been aiming to go there, but he had wandered right up to the gate, and he was _curious_. Guilty as heck, too, but he tried to quash that down, neatly kick it underneath the rug, focus on the curiosity.

He hadn't left a will before he'd left. Died. He hadn't thought about it, really. He didn't know if he was even buried in the cemetery here. His memories of the Rising were fuzzy. He'd wanted to be cremated, but, well, that obviously hadn't happened.

He walked down the uneven rows of headstones, reading each engraving, looking for a 'Tyler Joseph', resisting the urge to flinch at a couple of the names. It didn't take too long to find it, and he stared down at the words.

_Tyler Joseph_

_1988-2009_

_The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor touched but are felt in the heart._

He sat in front of it, and stared. He was dead, and he wasn't sure about anything. He traced the letters engraved on his headstone, trying not to think too hard, but not doing very well. He was sure it must be cold, wet with rain, but he couldn't feel it. Wilted flowers were planted on either side, sunflowers he knew must've came from his mom's garden. For about half an hour, he'd been doing the same thing, sat on the damp grass, mind far away.

"Hey," a voice behind him said, and he jumped. Apparently, he'd been too concentrated to hear the sound of footsteps, even though it was inevitably accompanied by the crunching of autumn leaves.

He twisted around and looked up, trying to get a better idea of the stranger. The voice had been feminine, and too cheery to really fit in the graveyard.

A girl with long blonde hair was smiling at him with purpled lips, staring through ruined pupils. He looked away, and tried to not make a disgusted noise. "Don't you cover up?" he asked, an he could see the frown on her far too pale face.

"No. I prefer being like this," she said.

"Doesn't it, like, freak you out?" He couldn't look at himself. Even the lenses didn't do much to stop him thinking 'killer' when he saw his face reflected back at him.

"No. Besides, couldn't be bothered to put all that on everyday." She paused, still looking at him with those _eyes._ "You don't like it much, though."

"We killed people like that. All of us. Do you want to remember that?"

"The living kill each other everyday with brown and blue and green eyes, but you don't see them putting white contacts in and using foundation far too light for their skin," she said, which, okay, was a point. It wasn't the same though. She sighed a but at his failure to respond properly, sitting down on Josh's grave. "I think our second life is a gift, and there's no point in hiding who we are."

He knew she was right, really, but it scared him.

"Tyler Joseph?" she asked, looking at the letters his fingers were still running over.

"Yeah. Who are you?"

She smiled at him. "Debby," she said.

"Oh," he said, and nodded. He didn't really know what to say. Apparently, death had done about as much for his social skills as it did for everything else. He looked up at her then, to excuse himself, and blinked. He hadn't really looked at her properly before, but she was awfully familiar.

She seemed to see it too, and smiled. "Hey, didn't we hunt together?" she asked, not bothered by talking about their untreated state, apparently.

He nodded, and started to move away. He didn't want to think about this, but she put a hand on his arm.

"I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about. It's just- I think you're lonely. I know you are. And you could go home and be miserable, or you could stay with me, and maybe you won't be quite as miserable."

Slowly, he nodded. "Okay," he said.

"Do you have anything planned for today, Tyler Joseph?" she asked.

"I need to be back by lunch, but I've got nothing apart from that."

"C'mon, let's go out then," she said, holding out her hand to him, and proceeding to pull him up with enough strength to make him almost topple over forwards.

***

She didn't explain to him where they were going, just chatted to him about random things as she lead the way. They ended up on some bus, and then in the town over, which was actually big enough to have some half-decent shops.

They went into some clothing store where everything was a bit too expensive for them to actually afford, but Debby still held things up against her and got excited about how pretty she would look in it, or point out things he would look good in.

He made her go into a more affordable store next, because he had money, and he would actually quite like to buy something, since they were supposedly shopping and all.

It wasn't a very productive trip- almost three hours and all he got was a skeleton hoodie and some lavender nail polish, which Debby had been unfazed by- but it had been fun. Tyler was starting to wonder what was up with him and considering people he'd met in the graveyard friends after he'd hardly known them.

On the ride back Debby looked at him. "We will talk again, won't we?" she said, and Tyler smiled, because he had felt happy today, after weeks of dullness, nostalgia, regret.

"Yeah, of course."

***

Maddie painted his nails for him after they ate lunch, and they made lame jokes. It was what they always did, because neither of them was that good at doing their own nails.

"Oh, when did you get this?" she asked, holding up the lavender bottle.

"Yesterday. Went out to town with a bud."

She smiled. "Good," she said.

For however long it took her to paint on the next coat, neither of them said anything, but then they had nothing left to do but wait for it to dry. "Ty, are you happy?"

Automatically, he wanted to say yes. It was what he was used to saying, and it stopped people from worrying, but, really, he wasn't quite sure. He tugged at the sleeves of the skeleton hoodie and shrugged slightly. Often, he wondered if he was better off dead. He had died for a reason, and he hadn't expected this. He didn't know if he wanted this. "I'm not sure," he said. Maddie would've seen through him anyway. "But I'm better than I was before."

Long silences had become a norm in this house, not that they'd ever admit it.

"Why didn't you leave a note," she asked, voice low and close to cracking. He stiffened, all movement coming to a halt.

"I'm sorry, Mads."

"Why, though?" Her voice was desperate, and, in some ways, he'd love to be able to ignore the repercussions of his actions, but he'd known this would be coming sooner or later.

"I was scared, Maddie," he said. "I was so scared, and so sad, and I just wanted it to stop."

"Ty-"

"Please," he said. "Just- drop it for now?"

Frowning, fists clenched, she nodded. "Later, then."

They changed the subject, talked and laughed, but the air was thicker than before. He'd have to talk about it sometime.

***

He went to the graveyard again the next day. He wondered if he would see Debby again, but it was as much to get outside as anything. He didn't need to think about health benefits anymore, but he didn't think it would help his mental well being to stay in the house all day, getting those looks from his family all the time. They meant well, but it made him uncomfortable.

There was someone sitting on the grave next to his when he got there, definitely not Debby. He was looking down at the description on the headstone, likely made harder by the way he was still siting on it, and didn't seem to hear Tyler approaching. He jumped when he looked up, and Tyler apologised.

"It's okay. I'm not mourning," the stranger said, standing up and moving away. Tyler couldn't help but notice and be slightly creeped out by the lack of cover-up, but he'd been through this with Debby.

"What are you doing, then?" he asked, trying not to pay attention to echoing thoughts of 'satanic rituals' and 'desecrating graves'.

"Um, that's me," he said, nodding at the grave he had been sitting on.

_Joshua Dun_

_1988-2009_

_Let our eyes at last be blinded_  
 _Not by the dark_  
 _But by dazzle_

"Oh. I was just going to visit my own grave," Tyler said, laughing slightly and trying not to stare too hard at the grave.

"Oh, cool," he said. "What's your name?"

"Tyler."

"Josh." He looked sheepish after a second, glancing at his headstone. "Well, yeah."

Josh shook his head slightly, then turned to the side. "Tyler Joseph?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"We're buried next to each other," he said, smiling at the clean black marble to their right. "I like the quote."

It was said gently, timidly. Talking about his death could easily be thin ice, and, to an extent, it was, because being undead wasn't any better than being alive. His sender were even less remarkable than before, and he looked repulsive, but he was otherwise the same. It was his fault, though, and he knew it, so he nodded.

"Yours is nice, too," he said. "Did you choose it?"

"No. I didn't expect to die so young, I guess," Josh shrugged, and he could hear the undertones of resentment and hurt, possibly guilt. He wanted to go up to him and hug him, tell him he understood, but he barely knew him.

"Same here," Tyler said, resisting the urge to add 'kinda'.

Josh pulled himself out of whatever thoughts about his death he'd been having, and focused in on the matching dates. "So how old are we? Twenty-one or twenty-five?"

Huh. Funnily enough, that hadn't occurred to Tyler before. "Forever twenty-one?" he asked. "I think we should get discounts at Forever 21, 'cause we're, like, the personification of the shop."

Josh laughed. "We could try it."

The clock chimed, and paused to listen, because he'd forgotten his phone.

"I promised my mom I'd be back by now," he apologised.

"It's cool. Maybe I'll see you again," Josh said, and Tyler nodded. He sure hoped so, but he didn't want to seem over eager about it.

***

Debby texted him a while after he'd met Josh telling him to come over tomorrow- God knows how, he hadn't given her his number, but he didn't understand much about Debby. Apparently, she knew Josh, and thought they should all hang out at her bungalow. She sent him the address.

Dutifully, he obeyed. The door opened seconds after he had knocked, and Debby was grinning at him. "Hey!" she said, taking him by the hand and leading him in.

"Hey," he said, waving a hand at Josh, getting a similar response back.

"We were planning on watching a movie. Sound good to you?" Josh asked.

"Sure." Josh patted the space next to him, and he sat. He had been expecting the movie to be spent mainly in silence, because it was a movie, but, of course, they were with Debby. Apparently, she was the sort to make jokes and obviously incorrect plot predictions all throughout the movie.

In all honesty, he found it hilarious. It usually annoyed him, but it was fun hearing the utter rubbish she spouted out, and Josh whining an pouting about her speaking over the good parts.

Debby kissed his cheek before he left, and Josh smiled at him and squeezed his hand.

"Talk to you sometime soon?" he asked, and Tyler just nodded lamely.

***

Josh and Tyler got together by themselves a few weeks later. Usually, they would've invited Debby, but this time she had begged out, saying she had a date, which was disappointing, but understandable.

It wasn't until a fair bit of walking in circles that they realised it was always Debby who came up with things to do and places to go. Josh shrugged slightly. "Wanna go to the graveyard?"

"What, because we're undead we can only hang in graveyards?" he asked, because that did seen to be a hangout spot for all three of them.

"Just head back to the bungalow then?" he asked.

"Sure."

***

"Do you ever wear cover-up or contacts?" He had stopped being freaked out by them without it on, though he still wore it himself. It felt wrong to take it off. He was still half pretending he was alive.

"Not really. Do you ever not."

"No."

Josh didn't speak immediately. He knew this was a sensitive subject for Tyler, but one he wanted to address. "You shouldn't. You shouldn't have to cover yourself up."

Tyler made a non-committal sound, and Josh used one hand to turn his face towards his own, still gentle, but firm.

"Ty, you  _shouldn't_ ," he said, eyes soft and staring directly into his own. "You don't have to if you don't want to, but do you think you could maybe take it off?"

Tyler dropped his gaze after Josh said that. Really, he wanted to. Quite a lot of him wanted to. It felt vaguely undignified to be in hiding once again, but he wasn't sure if he could look at himself with those eyes. He breathed deep, an nodded.

Josh smiled at him, sweet and caring. "Thank you," he muttered, ad Tyler just gave him a look somewhere between nervous and determined.

He walked to the bathroom, Josh trailing slightly behind, and picked up a washcloth. The mousse came off easy enough, revealing the skin below it, white and purple and undeniably that of a dead man. He hesitated more with the contacts, but took them out.

Irises white, pupils seemingly running out in every direction, like a black cartoon sun or something. Everything about him was so different to what it was before he was dead. Even his walk was different- his bones must've shifted or something when he died, because now his legs weren't quite right, and he limped slightly, looked a bit like a duck waddling along.

He stared right at himself, forced himself to think, _This is me_. He began to do the same thing as when he'd tried to come to terms with being queer.

 _My name is Tyler Joseph, I have two brothers, I play the ukulele, I like men, my sister is called Maddie, and I like to paint my nails_. Now, he only had to tack on 'and I am undead'. He said it in his mind ten times, just until it started to become meaningless, less monumental than it had felt not long before.

He turned to Josh, and smiled. "Thanks."

Josh probably would've blushed if he could. "It wasn't me."

"Thanks anyway," Tyler said, and squeezed his hand.

***

His parents did their best to hide their shock when he came through the door. "Tyler, what happened?" his mom asked, more surprised than anything.

"What do you mean?" He wanted to see what he would say.

"Well- you're not wearing your contacts or your cover-up," she said.

"Yeah."

His mom smiled, pulling him into a hug. "I think it's good for you, honey," she said, and he couldn't help but grin.

"Yeah."

***

Josh and him started to hang out without Debby a bit more after that. Not because they didn't like her, just because she was hanging out with her girlfriend as well now, and Josh and Tyler had become closer.

His mom had started just telling Josh where Tyler was when he knocked on the door. Usually, that was fine, because Tyler got a text from him first.

But now, Tyler was shirtless, having gotten distracted halfway through changing into daywear. Josh walked into the room, and Tyler had been too distracted to hear him walking up the stairs.

Tyler jumped, trying to fold in his arms, cover up his wrists, the cuts that couldn't heal, but he knew Josh had seen. He hurriedly slipped into a hoodie.

"It's okay," Josh said, and Tyler could see the look in his eyes, knew he must've been through the same. "We all have our scars."

***

At some point, he knew it would come. He had hoped it would take longer, but it was, once again, his own fault.

He'd gotten upset, gone out without telling anyone, stayed out for too long, and they were worried. They were panicking, to be more accurate, scared his second life was just a repeat of his first life.

Maddie sobbed and hugged him when she found him. "Don't do that. Ever. I thought you wouldn't do this again."

He hugged her back, apologising, but he knew it would be coming.

***

Maddie had called them, and they were all sat in the living room when he got back, only relaxing when they saw him. "Tyler!" his mom called, just about crying as she pulled him into another hug.

"Sorry, mom," he said, rubbing her arm.

"Sorry?" she asked, scoffing. "You're sorry? We were terrified! Last time this happened- you remember last time."

Tyler tried to say something, but she wouldn't let him get a word in, and, he decided, she probably needed this.

"You didn't leave a note, Ty. We didn't know what had happened. We thought you were out at a friends. We couldn't find you. We were sure you must've gone out. But you hadn't. The bathroom door was locked, and you didn't answer, Ty. You were bleeding so much when I got in. You were gone. You were already gone, but I still hoped."

She was sobbing, and he could see that everyone else had tears on their cheeks too.

He remembered it. He wished he couldn't. But, he remembered it all, how, at some point, it had become too much. The buzzing silence in his mind, like when you sit in a quiet room and listen as hard as you can, able to hear the faint sound of whatever is in the walls, the tick of the clock, your own breath and pulse, and it becomes a bit too much, and you breathe too fast, too shallow, pulse beating faster for no real reason, and then you just stop listening, and it's gone.

He hadn't been able to take it, the feeling of gradually becoming number and number to everything in the world, until the things you used to smile and get excited about just make everything duller. Eventually, he only cared about his family and his fried, Mark, and he'd wake up every morning, staring into his tired, dead eyes and think to himself, "One more day. Hold out one more day, for them."

And then, there had been an accident. Mark had gotten a bit tipsy at a party, and he'd stood on a balcony. A couple accidentally bumped into him, and his balance was skewed by the alcohol already, and he just. Fell. He was gone. Lying dead on a street, no longer looking like the man he was when he was alive.

The casket was closed- body too wrecked up to see- and Tyler didn't even cry, not for the first couple months. He couldn't accept it. Mark had been a constant, even when Tyler had stopped smiling and joking, stopped being such a good friend. And then Mark wasn't a constant, but Tyler still called his phone, just in case it had all been a mistake, and Mark would pick up.

He never did.

His breaking point happened three months or so after the funeral. His family would know it down to the day, maybe the hour, but it had been to confused, blurry, dreamlike for him to keep track. He called, and it didn't ring. Mark was well and truly gone, and Tyler didn't think he'd ever recover.

He sobbed, called another four times before he gave up, threw his phone away, accompanied by a cracking sound.

They were under his bed. He'd been planning this, an option for if it got too bad. A box full of razors under his bed, hidden under packets of strings for his ukulele, plectrums, scribbled down words in his own hand.

After that, he didn't remember much. A sharp pain, one he pushed through. Wetness and warmth. They didn't arrive soon enough for him to hear the inevitable shouting and crying, but he knew it must've came. Underneath all the pain was the relief, no longer numb. No longer anything.

It was just tears, wordless tears, and he was hugging them, saying over and over, "I'm sorry." And he was. He wished he hadn't.

"I'm sorry," he said, one last time before the tears dried out and they all composed themselves.

***

Time went quickly. The tension that had been there so long was finally gone, for the most part. Sometimes, it was still there, but it was nothing compared to what it had been before.

He wasn't sure what was happening between him and Josh. They would squeeze hands, kiss cheeks, cuddle up and watch movies together. He did the same things with Debby, bar cuddling up, but it was _different_ somehow. Maybe it was just him making it to something else, projecting his crush onto Josh, but he didn't think so. Debby teased him about it, asking if he and Josh would ever get it on, but he still didn't know if Josh actually liked him, or if she was just joking.

He tried to ignore it, as he did when his nose bled the black gunk that passed for blood when you were undead. Neither Josh nor Debby had mentioned anything like that, and when he searched it up, but no one else had suffered from the same symptoms, as far as he could tell.

The injections weren't the same anymore. He hadn't been able to control his body when his mom gave it to him last, muscles spasming, and he had ended up on the floor, panting from fear rather than need for air. His mom had looked scared, asked him if he was okay about fifteen times, and he nodded weakly.

"I'm fine," he said. "Josh said the same happens to him. Just another side effect." His smile was hardly believable, but he hoped his mom would write it off, assume it was because of what had just happened, not because he was scared, and lying. He didn't want her too worry.

He knew, though, that this wasn't meant to happen. His nose bled more often, and it was getting more difficult to pass it off. He couldn't use the excuse of having to go to the bathroom anymore, so he tended to just duck out, making a half-hearted excuse which was too mumbled to be heard.

He pressed the tissue against his nose. He had taken to carrying a few packets around with him, in the pocket of his hoodie. Josh was waiting in the sitting room for him. They had been about to go out, but he had felt another coming, tried not to sprint away. They were over and done with soon enough, but he didn't know _why_ they were happening.

He had a pretty strong suspicion, though. PDS syndrome was a new thing. There hadn't been anyone treated for it before recently, so they couldn't really know how well it worked long term. And, well, maybe he was becoming immune to the treatment.

Maybe, it wasn't working anymore, and he would go rabid again soon. And they wouldn't be able to do anything about it, would be forced to shoot him dead, just to stop him from killing anyone else.

The nose bleed had stopped, and he threw away the tissues, put on a smile and walked out. Josh didn't let go of his hand after he squeezed it, so they remained like that as they walked outside. They didn't have an aim, which was slightly unusual, but Tyler didn't question it, not until Josh turned around to face him once they got into a quiet area.

"Ty," he said, looking him in the eyes. "Are you okay?"

He wasn't as surreptitious as he had hoped to be. "Yeah, I'm cool."

"Please, Ty."

He fidgeted with his long sleeves. Josh had told him that no one would mind if he wore short sleeves, that almost all of the undead had scars. He still didn't want anyone to see the gashes on his arms, still unhealed.

"Tyler," he said, lifting up his chin to stop him from gazing at the floor. He looked worried, and Tyler didn't blame him.

"I've been having nose bleeds lately, but it's nothing," he admitted.

Josh didn't look convinced. "It's okay if you're not okay, Tyler," he said. "You can tell me."

"I think I'm going rabid, J. I think the treatment has stopped working," he whispered.

Josh looked broken. He could see him thinking it through in his mind, the hopelessness settling in as he realised it was completely possible. This was all new. Anything was possible.

Without saying a word, Josh pulled him into a hug. Neither of them cried, or wanted to cry. It was a sort of resigned numbness. They couldn't do anything about it. Tyler couldn't go back to the treatment centre, and they couldn't fix it any other way.

They didn't say much after that, just hugged and held hands until Tyler had to go home.

***

He woke up the next day feeling cold. He had kicked the blankets on the floor again- he did that when he had nightmares- and the window was opened. He shivered, standing up to close it, rushing because he had the promise of cuddling up in warm blankets if he did it quickly.

It wasn't until he was lying in bed, hands gripping the soft material, that he realised.

He was cold. The blankets were soft.

He was _feeling_. His breath caught, and he closed his eyes. This must be a dream. He couldn't feel. He didn't wake up, but he couldn't let himself believe it. He fell asleep. If he woke up in the morning able to feel, _then_ he would freak out, but for now he would ignore it.

***

He could feel. He could feel the zipper of his hoodie, cool against his skin. He could feel how smooth the door knob was. He could feel carpet beneath his feet.

"Are you alright, Tyler?" Maddie asked. He probably looked amazed. He _was_. Because this, all of this, meant he was _okay_. He wasn't dying, he was living, all over again. He was living, and feeling, and he was _okay_.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, grinning at her. "I'll tell you later, okay?" He would tell them at breakfast. Maybe he would eat breakfast with them, even. He felt hungry. He hadn't eaten in five years.

She gave him a bemused look, but nodded, and walked off. He was practically buzzing with excitement, waiting until they were all together. It wasn't long, and he waited until they were half way through eating it before he brought it up.

"I've been getting nose bleeds lately," he said, which got him concerned looks from everybody.

"Are you okay?" his dad asked. He'd been hearing that one a lot lately.

"Yeah, I'm fine actually. Sick. As frick. I thought I was going rabid, but this morning, I felt," he said.

"You- you _felt_?" his mom asked, and he nodded.

"What's happening to you?" Zack asked.

"I think I'm coming back to life," he said, and his mom started crying, not full-on sobbing, just tears trickling down her face as she smiled.

"I'm so happy for you, Tyler," she said, then looked horrified. "Wait- are you hungry?"

He laughed. She always worried far too much about his eating habits, both because they were so unhealthy, and because she was sure he must hardly eat to be so skinny. "I could go for a bit of food."

"I'll get you some now," his dad said.

Jay gave his shoulder a light punch, but he could see the extra shine in his eyes too. "I'm happy for you, bro."

***

He left as soon as he had eaten, to go tell Josh and Debby. Josh and Debby were both definitely crying when he told them. They had been so hopeless, so sure he was going to die. Josh kissed him on the lips, quickly, and smiled.

"You're warm," he said, and Debby touched Tyler's hand, checking that Josh wasn't just going mad.

"Are you wearing your contacts?" she asked, and he frowned.

"No."

"Your eyes are brown," she said.

They grinned. He was alive.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading this! wowowow it was so long (by my standards) idk how or when that happened, but i did write for about three hours straight.


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